Tituba

Tituba was a Barbadian slave owned by Reverend Samuel Parris of Salem, Massachusetts. She was the first woman accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials, as her involvement in a Barbadian dance ritual with the girls of Salem led to the belief that she had a compact with the Devil.

Biography
Tituba was an African slave who worked on Samuel Parris' plantation in the Barbados, and she was brought with him to Salem, Massachusetts in the Thirteen Colonies after he sold a part of the plantation in 1680. Tituba supposedly learned occult techniques from her mistress in the Barbados, which would allow her to detect the cause of witchcrat and to defend herself from the dark arts. Tituba entertained the girls of Salem with her Barbadian dancing rituals, and in 1692 she held one such ritual in the forest. The girls threw toads into a boiling pot of water in the woods while naming boys that they wanted to conjure, with Mary Warren witnessing the ritual; Reverend Samuel Parris would later see the ritual while taking a walk. Abigail Williams killed a chicken and drank its blood, wishing for John Proctor's wife Elizabeth Proctor to die, and Parris witnessed this. The girls ran away, and the next day Parris' daughter Betty Parris refused to wake up. Thomas Putnam's daughter Ruth Putnam also refused to wake up, showing signs of witchcraft. Abigail revealed to Reverend Parris that Tituba had told them about the ritual, and Parris whipped Tituba until she confessed that she had spoken to the Devil and refused to serve him. Reverend Samuel Hale exorcised her, and she said that she saw Mary Sibley with the Devil. Hale claimed that Tituba had been saved from the Devil, but when the girls began accusing other townspeople of witchcraft, the Salem Witch Trials began, and 20 people would be executed.